is revelation on-going from God to man?

11/4/2007 7:08:59 PM	is revelation on-going from God to man?
lastradicaldude Lamar, CO age: 53	Mary, you shared your misgivings about some of what I posted earlier, as follows: "But when we divorce Reason and blindly follow either the supposedly revealed teachings of "special" men or our own will, we stop growing and have effectively entered the religious world of "man worship"." Mary, I explained this somewhat to 4evr in the last reply to him. What I mean by "man worship" is taking the word of another, the revelation of another, and BLINDLY BELIEVING it as if it were your own. Men have historically BLINDLY followed witchdoctors, Jim Jones types, Hitler types, (the list is endless) without KNOWING for themselves. When one becomes a BLIND instrument utilized for the ends of another's vision (revelation) you are in the BLIND service (worship) of that person. You went on to state this concern, "I believe that if I divorce what I have learned about God and Religion,then I would probably loose my Faith in everything and "stop" growing.My spirituality is not who I am,but it certainly makes up what I am." Again you misunderstand what I am saying. You speak of what you have "LEARNED about God". If you truly KNOW something to be TRUE, then you can HONESTLY say you have LEARNED that. But if you only BELIEVE as a result of what you have read, or what some other man has told you, then YOU HAVE NOT TRULY LEARNED, as your BELIEF is not grounded in KNOWLEDGE. Fear not Mary, LOSING FAITH IN ONES BELIEFS is the first step to gaining TRUE KNOWLEDGE. I personally have chosen the path of KNOWING GOD, as opposed to the path of believing in god. One may believe in God without KNOWING GOD. But one cannot KNOW GOD without believing in God. Hope this helps. Lastrad
11/4/2007 7:21:12 PM	is revelation on-going from God to man?
lastradicaldude Lamar, CO age: 53	Whoobaby, you posted, "Yes,everytime you pray and get answers thats revelation !" I totally agree with you. I don't deny that God reveals Himself to individuals in ways too numerous to describe. But if you bring to me your Revelation, your truth, and attempt to get me to follow you based upon your word that God revealed such and such to you, I'm sorry sweetie, but I will wait until God reveals the same to me. And God may do just that, if it is meant that we endeavor in His work together. If you want me to follow your private revelation and engage in the building of a religion that will require the followers to blindly accept many of the claim that religion asserts, then again I am sorry, I could not join you. But for the most part this is exactly what has occurred with respect to the major religions of the world. Lastrad
11/4/2007 7:38:40 PM	is revelation on-going from God to man?
swcw25 Woonsocket, RI age: 48 online now!	Ok...a few questions..Oh first,I think you said something nice about me in your last post,never can really tell with you!LOL So Thank you,if you did!!!LOL so sweet!!NOT!JK! Ok Question... *Is it possible,that a lot of the past OT revelations were of men who perhaps suffered some sort of mental or personality defect(disorder)and actually "truly" believed things happened as they did. Say for instance...Moses did get the 10 commandments directly from God,but something changed him and he became very narcisistic and believed that all of his thoughts came from God.Like when people say that God told the soldiers to kill everyone,but keep the virgins for themselves.That wasnt God speaking,that was Moses's interpretation of what he believed God said. I believe that to have been the case! .....peace
11/4/2007 7:54:24 PM	is revelation on-going from God to man?
lastradicaldude Lamar, CO age: 53	It is possible, what you suggest, Mary. Another possibility is that those in positions of power, in the centers of power, either wrote or re-wrote the history in such a way as to justify their actions. In spite of the fact that we may never be able to KNOW and to honestly say that the Bible is the unadulterated Word of God, it still remains a teaching tool for those who want to learn the true nature of man. And it is also a great book when it comes to teaching attributes such as love, mercy and forgiveness. Consider the story of Joseph and his 12 brothers, and many others. That is my favorite. Lastrad
11/4/2007 8:07:56 PM	is revelation on-going from God to man?
swcw25 Woonsocket, RI age: 48 online now!	Thanks Last...I love the story of Joseph! That is where you saw the true meaning of "forgiveness"! Thats one of my favorites that I taught in Sunday School. I can so relate to Joseph looking past the negative and finding only unadulterated love! Plus a real "groovy" coat he had,heh?!!LOL .....peace
11/4/2007 8:36:29 PM	is revelation on-going from God to man?
lastradicaldude Lamar, CO age: 53	To be fair to 4evr, I should point out, as I did above to whoobaby that revelation does continue to individuals. So the answer to his question is yes, revelation is ongoing. What we do or don't do with that revelation is the question. I am not persuaded that it was God's intention that religions ever be built upon any of His revelations. The revelations alone are sufficient if they be from God, for they will ring true in all his creation. The revelation will not necesitate the erecting of a religion for the purpose of spreading the revelation. God is perfectly capable of doing that. Lastrad
11/4/2007 9:45:07 PM	is revelation on-going from God to man?
kellytoo Moses Lake, WA age: 57	Well Lastrad, whether its gross, disgusting, scarey as hell things that humans do, its still experiencing and hopefully growing from, isn't it. And don't you think it's possible that God does not take things as personally or dramatically as we do? Myself, I would not have grown as much or appreciated the pleasant times without the negative events.
11/4/2007 10:22:18 PM	is revelation on-going from God to man?
lastradicaldude Lamar, CO age: 53	Why wouldn't or shouldn't God "take things as personally or dramatically as we do?" If God is personally concerned in the least with his Creation then it would stand to reason that He must sense our infirmities. Most of us, nay I would submit all of us have learned things the hard way by the hand of experience. But the wise man or woman learns from the experiences of others less fortunate, who for whatever reason seem to attract negative consequences and events to their life. Experience is often a harsh teacher. And though we may grow from these negative experiences, God has no need to experience growth, as he is already complete. So the question remains, why would a wise God need to experience either nightmarish and horrific events or as you originally suggested dreaming through his creation? God certainly doesn't need to learn anything the hard way. Lastrad [Edited 11/4/2007 10:24:25 PM]
11/5/2007 5:47:15 AM	is revelation on-going from God to man?
kellytoo Moses Lake, WA age: 57	I am having fun on this website, just wanted to say that. It is so lively! In my personal reality, Lastrad, and every single one of ours varies, I don't see God as having human emotions, taking things personally like we do. I think we would be in a heap of trouble if God was like that. Also, even though the creator is divine perfection energy, isn't it possible God would enjoy all experiences. After all the creator isn't going to self distruct from humans drama and chaos. Maybe we are fascinating and fun to experience. I believe we are all little pieces of God, and noone has been able to define in the minutest detail, even with scientists breaking down energy with the string theory exploration, what spark in us gives us life. So if we are all little parts of God, then God is experiencing through us. Regarding learning through experience, we see this differently too. To me, knowledge is learned through books, formal education, watching others. Knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is experiencing something oneself and learning from it. An example, I have watched on tv, someone's house burning down, but I did not truely know what it was like until my own house burnt down.
11/5/2007 6:57:56 AM	is revelation on-going from God to man?
lastradicaldude Lamar, CO age: 53	Hi Kelly, first let me say how sorry I am that you had to experience your home burning down. I am sure that was devastating to say the least. From reading your posts, it appears that you may have read the book Conversation with God. At least some of your ideas are similar to those expressed there. The problem that I personally see concerning those ideas and yours is the relative absence of right and wrong, good and evil. If we look honestly within ourselves, we discover the desire to be like God. We also discover within the presence of competing forces of right and wrong, good and evil. The desire to be more like God could be simply described as wanting to be good, honest, loving persons giving justice and experiencing justice from others. None of us take pleasure in experiencing injustice at the hand of another. But if we could somehow remove the elements of right and wrong, good and evil from our perceptions of God, then to be consistent we must likewise remove those elements from our perceptions of mankind. But without the existence of certain absolute standards of right and wrong, good and evil, ideals such as justice and injustice would have no meaning, and would be equally non-existent. Accepting such a scenario momentarily for purposes of discussion would authorize us to engage in the experience of evil or the infliction of injustice upon others without consequence. Such a scenario would allow the same sort of evil or injustice to possibly be inflicted upon us by others without consequence. It would be absurd to think that anything other than a conceptual Jackass of a God would actually AUTHOR such a situation. And I personally am having a problem thinking that God is no more than a jackass. As far as your comments on Knowledge and Wisdom, I fear that here too, you are mistaken. Plato posed the question in the Meno as to whether it was possible to have wisdom without possessing knowledge. He used as his example a man attempting to determine the road to Larissa. A man might give accurate directions to Larissa if he had traveled to Larissa before and had learned the path, or had seen a map that displayed the correct route. However, a man would also give correct directions if he merely had the right opinion, without any basis for possessing this opinion. As Plato points out, the difficulty with an unfounded opinion is that there is no reason for one to preserve, or indeed to acquire it in the first place. Plato reasoned that the only way for such a one to possess right opinion is for it to be given to one by the gods. If someone then believes something, they think that it is true, but they may be mistaken. This is not the case with knowledge. For example, suppose that Jeff thinks that a particular bridge is safe, and attempts to cross it; unfortunately, the bridge collapses under his weight. We might say that Jeff believed that the bridge was safe, but that his belief was mistaken. It would not be accurate to say that he knew that the bridge was safe, because plainly it was not. For something to count as knowledge, it must actually be true. But if we are forced to gain this knowledge through personal experience then we are not wise. As wisdom first learns from the experience of others. As you stated in your post that until you experienced your house burning down you "did not truely know what it was like". The word you used was "know". You recieved knowledge. Wisdom on the other hand might provide you the necessary tools to prevent your house from ever burning again, although I do not know the cause, wisdom may enable you to avert another cause that would allow your new home to be burned. Wisdom is therfore the offspring of knowledge. Knowledge is the result of experience. Wisdom doesn't necessarily have to be obtained through the offspring of knowledge learned through your personal experience. The highest wisdom is that that is acquired by either giving attention to the harsh experiences of others or that wisdom that is imparted by God that Plato mentioned in the Meno. Lastrad
11/5/2007 7:59:39 AM	is revelation on-going from God to man?
kellytoo Moses Lake, WA age: 57	Thankyou, Lastrad, regarding your sympathy for my house burning experience. Events like that are shocking and terrible but it also changed my life for the better. Knocked me out of my atheist belief bigtime due to divine intervention that saved both my life and my daughter's. Guess I was meant to stick around this crazy planet a while longer, hahaha. Yup, I have read the Conversation with God books, score one for you there. I don't consider myself perfect and if I say something is good or evil, I am judging. And heck yes I have done that and still do too, just attempting to not judge others unless they try to infringe on my rights, harm me, and others I know, etc. It was actually a catholic priest that taught me to not condemn others, the good and evil item. I am not catholic nor ever was, but through events that had happened in my life, someone persuaded me to share with the priest. He played the devil's advocate role, as he told me he would. This was back when Son of Sam was murdering people and the priest told me he loved everyone, even Son of Sam. I thought how can that be he could love a mass killer like that. I did not understand what he was trying to tell me at the time, but it was about higher love and knowing a God of true compassion. I believe that there is a divine justice in the world and there are universal laws to which we all answer if we break them. Certainly there are things that happen all the time, that I think are terrible. I choose to be at peace as is possible in spite of it. Fyi, my career involves working with ill persons, who can be spontaneously violent. One way of not getting myself hurt by them is to remain calm and let them know I do truely care about them. Love heals and we all want to be loved. Okay, back to wisdom and knowledge differences, my understanding of them. I see wisdom as something that is learned through the mind and the body and emotions, hands on. It is a total experience. I see knowledge as reading, school etc. I agree that formal education is necessary for building a base of understanding about a subject, but I think true wisdom envelopes much more than just reading or writing something. sitting in a classroom per say. Example, when my house burnt down, I experienced the event in all of my senses, wisdom, it was not being a passive observer, and reading about it, knowledge. Anyway, it is fun talking to you! Kelly
11/5/2007 10:19:03 AM	is revelation on-going from God to man?
lastradicaldude Lamar, CO age: 53	Hi Kelly, maybe you would consider starting a " How I was Knocked out of my atheist belief" thread and share your blessing with the rest of us. I'm so glad for you. You brought up the issue of judging others and in almost the same breath used the term condemn(ed) interchangably. This is quite common among most people to understand the two to be the same. But that was not what Jesus taught. It is reported that Jesus taught, "judge not, lest ye be judged". But when one looks closely at the original Greek language of the text, the meaning is more accurately translated "Condemn not, lest you be Condemned." The significance of this difference is the fact that Jesus commonly judged the hypocrites of his day. He is reported to have been the most knowledgeable man ever to live when it came to the scriptures. Yet he was one of the loudest and strongest voices against the hypocrites of his day. Even called them names, such as "white washed sepulcres full of dead men's bones", hypocrites, sons of the devil, etc. Can you just imagine his Hebrew brethren responding and saying, "show us some love, stop judging us."? I am sure they were turned off by the radical Jesus. And he was not alone, there was John the Baptist and many others. But it is also important to point out that Jesus never condemned them. Rather he asked for their forgiveness. Quite often the charge of judging is made in an attempt to shut down a conversation because people do not want the mask removed by the light of the truth. So when we begin to point out good or evil, right or wrong we are often attacked and quickly labeled a "disrespectful", "demeaning", "antagonist". The attack must be shifted to the messenger to avoid having to look at their own evil or wrong. It's important to note that you said, "I don't consider myself perfect...". Once any of us say this, this statement alone infers that at our very core we believe in right and wrong, good and evil. For if there is no right and wrong, good or evil, then we would all be perfect. Pretty simple, aye? You stated that you try to avoid judging others "unless they try to infringe on my rights, harm me, and others I know, etc.". This is where the issue turns to one of subjective perception as there are others trying to harm you and yours at all times. For one example, the monetary system of this country is a total fraud by its very nature. The fact that the commodity of money can now be created out of nothing by certain persons, and the fact that we sit back and allow this evil depreciating currency to plunder our nation's wealth through the economic forces of inflation is beyond belief. Our energies and skills have all been captured by this new money without most people even knowing it. If I can acquire your labor for counterfeit you become my slave, and I have reduced your worth to nothing. So when one begins to judge this state of economic slavery for what it actually is such a person is demeaned, their views are marginalized, and disinformation is used to silence their effectiveness. The centers of power, religious and political, all teach not to judge. We are taught to relax and allow the evil to prosper. It is absurd to me that we would consider these teachings to be from God. And this is where ongoing revelation remains so important to mankind so that we are not decieved by new forms of darkness, new evils, that for whatever reason we do not immediately discern. Lastrad
11/5/2007 11:29:05 AM	is revelation on-going from God to man?
queenofhearts61 Seymour, IN age: 61	I do not understand why you keep on about anyone saying there is no bad or good. I have never met a person in my life[have lived many places and met many people]that did not think there was right and wrong. Yet you keep saying that as if no one but you believed it. Some of us have said you do not have to be living a religion to accept that there is right and wrong. And some things are right to some and not to others whatever your spiritual beliefs. For instance not working on the sabbath or eating meat or not killing anything even an insect. I do not think you could find anyone that thinks murder is ok, though in war or to defend is ok. Nor do people think it is right to steal, though many do I am sure they too would say it is wrong. Nor are there any that would say a lie is ok, yet people do it to not hurt feelings or to tell their children about Santa. So Lastrad I do not understand the point that you belabor here.
11/5/2007 11:38:59 AM	is revelation on-going from God to man?
kellytoo Moses Lake, WA age: 57	Okay Lastrad, thanks again and I will consider sharing my story about the turnaround towards God. In the meantime I will blather some more about what you last wrote. I agree with you about judging others, sounds right, just don't condemn and be able to forgive others. I do think there have been many wise souls who have graced us with guidance on the planet, besides Jesus, though he was certainly a great master. I also honor Ghandi and his passive resistance movement, among other wonderful teachers. When I stated I was not perfect, it is because I was talking about my ego self. I believe we all consist of a higher self too and a lower subconscious self, three selves. It is easy to trip up on ego and self importance. My way or the highway, attitude. I am not a person that lives in fear for that solves nothing except to attract more of the same and I attempt to not live with my head buried in blissful ignorance either. I am aware of what is happening with the corprocracy/government take over of our country and the world and that big bro is alive and well. One must educate self continually for our own welfare, health, sanity and safety, as well as for the world's future. Here is a little something I wrote recently. Kelly Our Nemesis We fight in wars with each other And fear it shall bring armagedon We fight against viruses and diseases And fear new plagues shall wipe us out We fight against global warming And fear we shall starve from climate change We fight for our rights being taken away And fear we shall live in a one world order The true enemy is in our food and our water It is in the air we breathe What we use every day on our bodies Cleaning our homes and yards with And it began with petroleum With the birth of chemical products We are slowly poisoning ourselves Living in an artificial, necrophilic world So go ahead and spray your home for spiders And make it smell like roses in bloom with airfreshner Eat that frozen presevered meal made for your convenience Slap on those beauty products to look more appealing Consume the pills for your mounting health afflictions Maybe some of us shall mutate enough to adapt And what shall we become if we do survive Well preserved indeed, but will we be human...
11/5/2007 12:04:23 PM	is revelation on-going from God to man?
lastradicaldude Lamar, CO age: 53	Thanks Kelly, for sharing that great poem. For anyone that is not aware of the Corporatocracy mentioned by Kelley, read "secrets of an Economic Hitman" by John Perkins. You know kelly, I think its very likely that you and I are on the same page. We may not have quite met in the middle yet, but were not far apart. Be blessed. Peace and Joy, Lastrad

Page: 1, 2, 3, 4

rubmaps com

best hookup websites 2016